Myanmar Election: Aung San Suu Kyi in position for re-election

The State Counselor of Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, looks set to win another term based on the results of Sunday’s general election. The 75-year-old came into power in 2015, where she won a landslide victory in the country’s first general election since ending military rule in 2011. She was seen as widely popular upon her first election and was even the recipient of the Nobel Prize. However, her response to the Rohingya crisis was a dramatic fall from grace for the head of state, as hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas fled Myanmar in 2017 during an army crackdown. The UN described this crackdown as ethnic cleansing even while Suu Kyi described the event as targeting militants. Suu Kyi is part of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party and faced tense opposition from the Union Solidarity and Development party, one backed by the military rule that Myanmar broke away from in 2011. Along with 23 other opposition parties, the USD called for a postponement of the election for fear of coronavirus concerns, but Suu Kyi brushed this aside in October saying the election was “more important than Covid.” The UN also weighed in on the election, citing that it would not be free and fair due to the disenfranchisement of the minority Muslin Rohingyas. The UN’s claims come on the heels of 6 Rohingya candidates being denied the ability to run in the general election. A total of 1,171 seats are being voted on in the upper and lower houses of the national, state and regional governments, but several regions of the country have been barred from voting due to conflict and their inability to hold what the government deems a free and fair election. In total, over 2 million out of the 37 million registered voters will not be able to cast a ballot in the country’s 2nd ever general election.  

Trevor Mohrmann

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54820946